GreenGeeks Web Hosting Review — How Does This Green Web Hosting Company Stack Up Against Mainstream Rivals?

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GreenGeeks web hosting rivals the market leaders and is quickly taking the web hosting market by storm, surpassing many of its older, more established competitors. Yes, there are a few niggles, just like with any other hosting company, and this GreenGeeks review will cover them. But overall, there’s very little to be discontented with when it comes to this green web hosting provider. If you’re offered two hosting plans with identical features and benefits, but one of them also lets you significantly help the environment, without having to pay or do anything extra, which one would you choose?

source: VPS Web Server

Why Should You Choose Green Web Hosting?

Seems obvious, right? Like, “Well, d’uh!” Yes, most of us know we should do more for the environment, for our kids and future generations. But how often do you consider how much of an impact your web hosting has on your carbon footprint? Pretty much never, I’d guess. It seems innocuous. It’s a staple, but it’s only web hosting, right?

Wrong.

In fact, web hosting is one of the biggest contributors to carbon emissions and the use of fossil fuels. By 2020, scientists report that web hosting will be the biggest contributor, producing more even than the airline industry. Which is staggering. I mean, it’s just web hosting, how much energy can it use and carbon can it produce? Well, with tens of millions of hosting servers, and each server producing 1,390 pounds of CO2 every year, it’s a lot. And, with the demand for web hosting services set to rise 400 percent every year for the foreseeable future, the reality of web hosting’s contribution to climate change is estimated to be 5 percent of total global warming by 2020. Those are some shocking and frightening figures.

If you’re remotely concerned about the preservation of our fragile planet for future generations and are an eco-conscious consumer — both of which I assume you are as you’ve landed here on Real Self-Sufficiency — then choosing green web hosting is the only sensible and conscionable thing to do.

So Why Choose GreenGeeks Web Hosting?

GreenGeeks is an eco-friendly web hosting provider that caters to all kinds of hosting needs, including Drupal-optimized green hosting and WordPress-optimized Earth-conscious web hosting options.

Source: Web Hosting Plan Guide

Industry-Leading Green Hosting

This company are without question the leading green web hosting providers and, in fact, rival if not surpass many longer-running, traditional energy-using companies. Instead of just negating your web hosting carbon footprint, GreekGeeks makes your web hosting carbon negative. So, for every unit of energy your hosting uses, GreenGeeks replenishes it with three. This makes your web hosting 300% carbon negative. Switching to a green web hosting provider is such a simple way to go green, but everyone who makes the switch has a significant impact. You won’t just be doing your bit to not harm the environment — you’ll actually be having a positive impact on it.

U.S. EPA Green Power Partner

GreenGeeks are a Green Power Partner of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, so are recognized for their eco-friendly status and for their use of renewable energy with a zero emissions and carbon footprint reduction profile.

Plenty of Features

GreenGeeks offer industry-standard cPanel features, including SSH access, Hotlink and Leech protection, and IP Blocker for increased security. With a range of optimized hosting options, this eco-friendly web hosting company offers one-click installation of most popular CMSs, including WordPress and Drupal. And from our tests with WordPress, GreenGeeks matched some of the best WordPress hosts available. Which is pretty impressive. You can also host as many domains as you want under one hosting account.

Server Options

Now, you can save money, particularly if you’re running a small site, by opting for GreenGeeks’ shared server hosting. It’s the most cost-effective method for many online businesses and blogs. And, unlike many of its rivals, GreenGeeks doesn’t overcrowd its shared servers. This means that instead of overselling server space, this green hosting company ensures lower numbers of sites per server so your website doesn’t suffer slow-downs or other reduced performance. Their shared hosting plan offers unlimited space and bandwidth, so you don’t have to opt for VPS or dedicated servers if you don’t want to. These options are readily available, but, given that they are aimed at Enterprise-level companies, you’ll obviously pay considerably more for them than the shared hosting options.

Nightly Backups

Just in case something goes horribly wrong, GreenGeeks take nightly backups. It’s a sensible precautionary measure that ensures if your site falls down, there’s a secure copy to get it back up quickly.

Up Time and Support

GreenGeeks guarantee 99.9% up time, offer a 30-day money back guarantee, and offer 24/7/365 expert support via live chat, telephone, or email. Although email support can take as long as 24 hours to respond. We found their support really helpful and they were able to guide us through a variety of tasks, including migrating a domain, setting up email, and some security items. They also have a knowledge base that includes lots of detailed information and tutorials.

Freebies

As of June 2018, GreenGeeks give you a free domain name and provide free website migration via their migration specialist team. Free migration is a big bonus for many people who find just the prospect of doing it themselves daunting. So don’t let migration be a barrier to switching to a green web host.

The Drawbacks of Using GreenGeeks

While we love GreenGeeks — have already purchased a hosting plan for our new website, and are migrating this site to them as soon as our current hosting is up for renewal, in every review I write, I like to give you the whole picture — even if it’s not 100% pretty. There are a few things to be aware of with GreenGeeks.

Domain registration fees are up to 50% higher than many of the economy domain registrars. However, the fees are still in line with those charged by the majority of the well-known shared hosting companies.

There’s only a 30-day refund period. Now, while this is enough for you to test the waters and see if you like their basic setup, it’s not really long enough for you to experience any technical hiccups or other issues that would make you reconsider using their service.

The biggest hosting savings are only available if you purchase 3 years of hosting. If you pay monthly, yes, you do get to test their service fully, but you’ll pay considerably more if you do this over a year.

There is a $15.00 one-time setup fee if you choose to pay monthly. If, however, you choose to purchase 1, 2, or 3 years of hosting, the setup fee is included.

None of these issues are deal-breakers to me, but it’s important to be transparent.

Your purchase of hosting gets you industry-leading performance, unlimited resources, including bandwidth, disk space, domains, and email addresses, 99.9% uptime, and secure, reliable service. On top of that, you get to negate your carbon footprint and make a positive impact on the planet with this innovative green web host. If you’re looking for other easy ways to get a little greener and reduce your carbon footprint — while saving money, improving your health, and having fun — check out our popular “50 Simple Ways to Go Green” post.

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16 thoughts on “GreenGeeks Web Hosting Review — How Does This Green Web Hosting Company Stack Up Against Mainstream Rivals?”

I am also one of these guests here who did not know about the green webhosting. But I am most certainly glad there is something like green webhosting. And moreover, if the company is really reliable and takes care of its clients, then we all should consider it. I love the idea behind the GreenGreks Webhosting.

This post is really informational. I mean, I only know of Ecosia. Similarly, it’s a green web search. Frankly speaking, I love how honest you are when you wrote this. Web hosting is indeed a big part when it comes to blogging especially if you will be serious about it. I just transferred to another host and everything’s good so it will be quite some time before I transfer again. But, I will definitely share this to other blogger friends!

Like Carola, I didn’t know that there is such a thing as green webhosting. It’s nice to know that there is another option. But, I’m not the really techie kind. So, I usually delegate website concerns to my hubby. 😉

Katy Willis

EG III

That fact about carbon emissions by 2020 is pretty scary. I had no idea web hosting played such a negative impact on the environment. Green geeks seems like an amazing host service for the environmentally conscious.

I didn’t even know there existed a green webhosting company. Interesting to read about it. I love the transparency in your article. Makes me confident to make the right decision. I had never thought about web hosting being a part of contributing to carbon emissions and the use of fossil fuels. Really good to be aware of that!

Katy Willis

I think it’s because your web hosting is one of those things you can’t physically see. I mean, you pay for it, you know it’s there, but you don’t necessarily consciously think about it, or the energy it’s consuming. But now you know, you can make the change to green web hosting.

That sounds cool. I never heard about this web hosting brand before. But reading through what they could offer, i think they seem to be promising. As of the moment im not yet in need of a web hosting service but might check this out in the future. Thank you for sharing 🙂

I didn’t know that web hosting had that much effect on our environment, this is a very helpful and informative post. I agree, why choose a regular hosting site when you get to have a web hosting provider and contribute to saving the environment as well. This is something that I would consider using and other bloggers should as well. Thank you very much for sharing this.

Katy Willis

I knew it played a part – but I didn’t know how much web hosting contributes to carbon emissions/fossil fuel use/global warming. And it’s just going to get worse as more people put their blogs and businesses online. So, switching to GreenGeeks when you need hosting offsets your carbon footprint and that of two other blogs/websites of the same size. Such an easy way of making a big green impact with no effort.

this is my first time to discover Green Geeks Hosting.. I have been in my web hosting provider for almost 7 years now and for me aside from the features, what really matters to me is the customer service… especially when I encounter issues with my website and I needed a quick fix, It is very important to me that a web host is easily approachable.. green geeks seemingly offer the same service thanks for the honest review

Katy Willis

Their customer support is one of the biggest selling points for me (aside from the green carbon-negative aspect) – they are extremely helpful, which is fabulous, whether you’re a total newbie or a seasoned web master.

Thank you!

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